I am very happy that Nylander is staying in Toronto but I do sort of feel like Leafs fans would be wise to not lean too heavily on the idea that winning in Toronto is somehow better than winning somewhere else. I feel like that takes us uncomfortably close to being the sort of caricature some people say we are. It's the Cup, if you win it it's probably pretty terrific no matter where.

For the player sure, but the overall reaction of the market it wouldn't be the same. Win a Cup in Toronto and the entire country knows who you are, you're a celebrity and legend especially in Toronto for all time. Win a Cup in Arizona, would most people on the street even recognize you the week after? I doubt it.

For the player sure, but the overall reaction of the market it wouldn't be the same. Win a Cup in Toronto and the entire country knows who you are, you're a celebrity and legend especially in Toronto for all time. Win a Cup in Arizona, would most people on the street even recognize you the week after? I doubt it.

I think that's already more or less how the markets treat the players though. Winning a Cup wouldn't really change how many people in Toronto/Canada know who Willy Nylander is.

For the player sure, but the overall reaction of the market it wouldn't be the same. Win a Cup in Toronto and the entire country knows who you are, you're a celebrity and legend especially in Toronto for all time. Win a Cup in Arizona, would most people on the street even recognize you the week after? I doubt it.

I think that's already more or less how the markets treat the players though. Winning a Cup wouldn't really change how many people in Toronto/Canada know who Willy Nylander is.

Well, we've never seen a Cup winner in our lifetimes (apologies to the way older than me guys in here) so I can only imagine how popular the players would be if we ever won. A buddy of mine, total geek who knows nothing about hockey and doesn't follow it at all, even he knows who Sundin is because of those conference finals runs the Leafs had back in the 2000s

I don't think it matters much. The odds of Dubas ever wanting to move Nylander are probably pretty low and any change can be communicated to Nylander beforehand.

I think it matters a great deal. A lot can happen in 6 years, and any "change that can be communicated later" is pretty cavalier way of saying that dubas can break his word without consequence to his reputation and the organization's by proxy.

And on top of this, every other player coming out of entry level will attempt to leverage the same commitment, since it's been on the table once. Either Dubas screwed up by offering it, or screwed up royally with Nylander announcing it.

For the player sure, but the overall reaction of the market it wouldn't be the same. Win a Cup in Toronto and the entire country knows who you are, you're a celebrity and legend especially in Toronto for all time. Win a Cup in Arizona, would most people on the street even recognize you the week after? I doubt it.

Leaving aside the fact that I'm sure some players would view that as a net positive, I don't even really believe that's true. The idea that a cup win would isolate a player from the sort of thing that happened to Sundin at the end of his career doesn't wash with me.

Winning the cup would certainly be a lot of fun and I'm sure fans would be excited but I feel like a little while later fans would go right back to wanting to win another cup and having the same sort of transactional relationship with the players we just saw throughout the Nylander negotiating process.